Bookstores

Jack Rems, owner of Dark Carnival Bookstore in Berkeley CA, has announced the store will be closing due to declining sales. No date has been specified, but Rems told Berkeleyside, “I need to pay bills, so as long as by selling off stock we are generating more than it costs [we will stay open].” He also expressed his gratitude for all his long-term customers and encourages people to partake ...Read More

Online retailer Amazon.com opened a brick-and-mortar bookshop, Amazon Books, on November 3, 2015 in Seattle’s University Village. Amazon’s corporate headquarters is located in the same city.

The store has 5,500 square feet of retail space and another 2,000 for storage, and stocks between 5,000 and 6,000 titles, mostly Amazon bestsellers and books rated highly by website customers, an approach Amazon Books vice president Jennifer Cast calls “Data with a heart… ...Read More

On Feb. 22, 2015 Borderlands Books announced that they reached their
goal of 300 sponsors, just two days after announcing a plan to offer
sponsorships to keep the store open, on Feb. 19, 2015. Borderlands
will remain open until at least March 31st, 2016.

The survivability of the sponsorship program depends upon continued
participation. More sponsorships will help stabilize the future of the
store. In order to stay open the ...Read More

San Francisco specialty bookshop Borderlands Books is going out of business. The store will close its doors no later than March 31, 2015, but may close earlier, depending on how quickly the inventory can be sold. Owner Alan Beatts explains:

The recent change in San Francisco minimum wage law will prevent the store from being financially viable no later than July of 2018 (at which point our payroll will have ...Read More

Author James Patterson has given away the third and final round of grants in this year’s “Saving Bookstores, Saving Lives” campaign. In this round he donated $473,000 to 81 independent bookstores. He has given away a total of $1 million to indie stores this year, all funded by the author personally.

During a discussion in the French National Assembly about prohibiting free shipping by Amazon in order to preserve the competitiveness of bookstores, a counter-proposal to grant a tax reduction to non-DRM or proprietary e-books was introduced. Isabelle Attard, the French deputy and member of the Europe Ecology Green Party who suggested the idea, made the distinction between the right to possess a digital e-book file and the right to read ...Read More

Bookstore chain Barnes & Noble has cut back orders of new Simon & Schuster titles — to “almost nothing” for some books — during an ongoing dispute over financial terms. Refusing to sell books is a new negotiating tactic for B&N, though not unheard of in the industry; Amazon.com famously removed “buy now” buttons from Macmillan titles during a dispute over terms. The refusal to stock S&S books will certainly ...Read More

Tom Doherty Associates, publisher of Tor and Forge Books, has announced that it will launch an online store to sell DRM-free e-books directly to readers. Opening summer 2012, the Tor/Forge DRM-Free E-book Store will be hosted at www.tor.com. It will sell all Tor, Forge, Starscape, Tor Teen, and Orb e-book titles, and plans to eventually offer titles from other publishers as well. ...Read More

The Science Fiction Writers of America plans to remove many of its links to Amazon.com, following Amazon’s decision to remove 4,000 books distributed by IPG in the aftermath of a pricing dispute between the two companies. When possible, SFWA volunteers will redirect links to indiebound.org, Powell’s, and Barnes and Noble. From the SFWA website:

“While Amazon has the right to decide with what company it does business, its removal of ...Read More

“It’s been a tough decision but in-store business has all but disappeared. Mail order shouldn’t change too much because of this but there definitely will be changes — different phone number, different hours, more used ...Read More

Following in the footsteps of Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million announced they will no longer sell print versions of the 100 graphic novel titles that DC plans to release exclusively in digital form on the new Amazon Kindle Fire next month.

Books-A-Million president Terry Finley said, “We will not promote titles in our stores… if publishers choose to pursue these exclusive arrangements that create an uneven playing field in the ...Read More

Barnes & Noble yanked physical copies of 100 DC Comics titles from shelves after the publisher cut its first digital rights deal exclusively with Amazon for those books. The titles are scheduled to be released in conjunction with the launch of Amazon’s Kindle Fire, their first color e-reader. B&N said it is following company policy for dealing with publishers that release digital versions of titles without making them available to ...Read More

Borders will not emerge from bankruptcy successfully, but will instead be liquidated.

With no bidders interested in keeping the bookstore chain as a going concern, Borders chose to cancel the planned July 19 auction, and instead announced plans to submit a liquidation plan from Hilco and Gordon Brothers to the bankruptcy court for approval. Assuming approval goes smoothly, liquidation is set to begin July 22, 2011. The company’s remaining 399 ...Read More

Australia’s dominant bookselling organization REDgroup Retail has been placed into voluntary administration by its owner, private equity group PEP, just a day after Borders Group filed for bankruptcy. The group includes Angus & Robertson, Borders in Australia, and New Zealand’s Whitcoulls, with a combined staff of about 2,500. Angus & Robertson’s history in Australia dates back to 1886, and Whitcoulls dates back to 1882.

Borders has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing a debt of $1.29 billion and assets of $1.275 billion, in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. They expect to “finalize and implement a store closure, store liquidation and lease modification plan” as approved by their board, closing about 30 percent of their 642 stores, or approximately 200 locations, over the next few weeks. Creditors, including book publishers and distributors, are owed about $230 ...Read More

Borders Bookstore announced on Sunday, January 30 that it would delay January payments to some landlords and vendors (including major publishers) for the second month in a row, causing speculation that the company may have to file for bankruptcy. According to a company statement, the payment delay “is intended to help the company maintain liquidity while it seeks to complete a refinancing or restructuring” of existing credit and obligations. Borders ...Read More

Amazon has made some Nielsen Bookscan data available free to authors via their Author Central program. Authors who sign up for the free program can see geographic weekly sales data for their print books.

Amazon vice president Russ Grandinetti said, “Authors are an important community for us … We’re really happy to make it easy and free for them to see geographical BookScan data updated weekly, as well as historical ...Read More

CEO Mike Edwards said, “We are taking steps to transform our retail model, in part through high-impact strategic partnerships, like Build-A-Bear Workshop, that enable us to offer a compelling mix of lifestyle focused products. By offering a rich and relevant selection of product – ...Read More

The Barnes & Noble board of directors stated Tuesday, August 5, 2010 that it will consider the sale of the nationwide bookstore chain in a “bid to increase shareholder value.” The board says that Barnes & Noble shares are “significantly undervalued.” The company is still “exploring all strategic alternatives,” and plans to invest $140 million to increase digital sales. Before the announcement, Barnes & Noble stock was selling at $12.84 ...Read More

Canadian independent bookseller McNally Robinson has declared bankruptcy and will close two of its four stores immediately: one in Polo Park in Winnipeg, and their new Toronto store. As a result, 170 of the bookseller’s 425 full- and part-time employees will lose their jobs. Co-owner Paul McNally says that as long as the company’s bankruptcy plan is approved, the other two stores in Winnipeg and Saskatoon will remain open. “They ...Read More

For the most part, I found Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets to be an enjoyable space adventure, deploying consistently dazzling visuals in support of an involving story that never becomes entirely predictable. And while serious issues are intermittently raised, the film is refreshingly unpretentious, in contrast to other recent films, as the director’s primary aim was clearly to entertain audiences, not to enlighten or inspire ...Read More